


Don’t Turn Away (say nothing is over)

by LeapAngstily



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Attachment Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Sexual Content, fear of intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-07 00:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11047824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeapAngstily/pseuds/LeapAngstily
Summary: “Fuck it. I’m coming over.”Riccardo goes to the US. Andrea's kids are sick and tired of their father's constant whining.





	Don’t Turn Away (say nothing is over)

**Author's Note:**

> A wise person once said I'm physically incapable of writing fluff without turning it angsty. This fic proves that point once again.
> 
> I've been listening to Sunrise Avenue non-stop for a week now, hence the title. You might also find some references to their lyrics in the fic itself, but I assure you those are not intentional.
> 
> I consider this a sequel to [Love Like Flying](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4406483), but it's not necessary to read that to understand this one.

 

 

 

_“Fuck it. I’m coming over.”_

 

His flight touches down at JFK and Riccardo allows himself a moment to wonder what exactly he is doing here.

There had been the five-week period of Skype silence followed by an almost-fight when they finally found time to get in touch. Riccardo is the first to admit the argument had been 99 percent his fault, the final 1 percent falling on Andrea only because he hadn’t been smart enough to disconnect the call on time.

Somehow, the call had gone from Riccardo yelling at Andrea to him crying his eyes out to him declaring he would get on the next flight to New York.

The ‘next flight’ in their context of course didn’t mean what it means for your average person – after going through their hectic schedules, Riccardo had booked a flight departing two days after Serie A season would be wrapped up, only to reschedule after his unexpected national team call-up which pushed up his departure date by another two weeks.

But he’s here now, in New York City, after 9 hours of sitting on the cramped plane seat without a wink of sleep. His mind is on overdrive, incapable of properly grasping the fact that in a few minutes, he will see Andrea in person for the first time in almost a year. There are announcements broadcasted through the intercom, first in English and then in Italian, but his brain is having trouble processing any new information, no matter what language.

He still has no idea what he is doing here when he gets off the plane and follows the steady stream of passengers through the passport checks and customs.

“What’s your purpose of stay?” the customs officer asks, completely routine, but it forces Riccardo to pause before answering.

“I’m visiting” — the love of my life — “a friend.”

What is Andrea to him? They used to be so much – friends, lovers, partners – but Riccardo has trouble deciding where in that scale their relationship falls now. It had started as an all-out long distance relationship with almost daily Skype calls and WhatsApp messages. After the first few months, they had settled to around one call per week, but they still kept messaging each other on a daily basis. Back then, Andrea’s occasional visits to Italy and stints with the national team had also ensured their relationship was still a thing of now rather than the past.

But the longer Andrea stayed in the US, the harder it was for Riccardo to convince himself it would last. Andrea seemed to settle so well into the new environment and his children were absolutely flourishing in New York. And then he wasn’t called up for the national team anymore, leaving him with one less reason to come back to Italy – to Riccardo.

“Over here Ricky!” The high-pitched voice rings over the general noise of the Arrival Hall, and Riccardo has no problem spotting Angela, who’s jumping up and down, waiving at him from the very front of the crowd that’s waiting for their loved ones to arrive. He can’t see Andrea anywhere.

“Hey there,” Riccardo greets the girl with only a bit of hesitation, which is only met by Angela tackling him into a far too familiar hug. Yes, Riccardo had spent lots of time at Andrea’s place when he was still living in Italy, getting to know Angela and Niccolò in the process. No, he never considered him and Angela to be on hugging terms, especially not after two years of not seeing each other.

“Where’s your dad?” Riccardo asks when the girl releases him, scanning the crowd around them in hopes of spotting the familiar face.

“He’s waiting at the car – we couldn’t find a spot so he’s parked illegally,” Angela answers with an amused smirk that reminds Riccardo too much of her father. Well, at least there’s a proper explanation why he’s not here greeting Riccardo personally.

“C’mon, he’s been dying to see you!” Angela starts leading him out of the Arrival Hall, not waiting for Riccardo’s reply or even looking back to make sure he’s following.

The air outside is stifling, a combination of summer’s first heat wave and fumes from the cars parked in long lines. They reach Andrea’s car and Riccardo isn’t surprised in the least when he notes the SUV must be double the size of the car Riccardo drives back in Italy. Andrea loves his big cars – already did before moving to the US.

Andrea is leaning on the car with his arms crossed and sunglasses covering half of his face. Somehow he still manages to aim occasional glares at the car behind his, because the driver keeps blowing his horn even though there’s more than enough room to get past the parked SUV. Riccardo can’t help the chuckle that escapes his lips, because it’s such an Andrea thing to do. The realization immediately makes him feel a bit more at ease.

“Riccardo.” The warmth in Andrea’s voice makes his knees go weak and the smile directed only at him almost makes him forget his earlier doubts as his chest is filled with flutter of pure happiness. With the unbearable distance to focus on, it’s been so easy to forget how much he’s actually missed Andrea.

Riccardo’s throat is constricting, a sob threatening to escape his lips if he tries to say anything at all, so instead of returning Andrea’s greeting, he closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around Andrea’s neck and presses his face against his shoulder. Andrea returns the hug immediately, his hands sliding up and down Riccardo’s back in comforting caress.

A horn blares again, making Riccardo drop his arms back to his sides.

“Well fuck you too for ruining the moment!” Andrea yells at the car in his broken English, but he’s still smiling when he faces Riccardo again. “Let’s get your bags into the car and let’s get outta here, okay?”

“Okay,” Riccardo answers softly and then feels silly because he had imagined his first words to Andrea after all this time to be something completely different.

Angela fills the silence in the car with incessant babble from the backseat as they drive away from the JFK Airport. The way she keeps dropping English words into her Italian sounds so natural it makes Riccardo absolutely certain Andrea’s children have long since surpassed their father at their new home language.

Andrea reaches out and squeezes Riccardo’s hand gently, their eyes meeting momentarily before Andrea’s gaze is back on the road. Riccardo can’t remember if they ever used to hold hands when they were both still living in Italy – they probably did, he can’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t have – but still the gesture feels unfamiliar after month and months of only virtual contact.

They drop Angela off at a friend’s house – she makes Riccardo swear he will not leave country before she’s back home – and then suddenly it’s just the two of them in the car.

“Sorry. I was supposed to drop her off before picking you up, but training ended late and then she insisted on coming along,” Andrea breaks the silence that threatens to stretch between them, nodding his head towards the backseat where his daughter was sitting only moments earlier.

“It’s alright, she seemed happy enough to see me.” Riccardo is staring out of the window, studying the large houses lining the road. It’s not his first time visiting the US, but usually his holiday destinations have been located away from the residential areas. Right now, he feels like he’s been dropped in the middle of a postcard image depicting the American Dream.

He’s genuinely interested, there’s no way he’s avoiding Andrea’s gaze. That would be plain silly.

Luckily for Riccardo, Andrea lets him cling to his denial and just turns up the volume on the car stereo, humming along some latest radio chart hit Riccardo doesn’t quite recognize even though he remembers hearing the melody on Italian radio as well.

It takes almost half an hour before they reach Andrea’s house and neither of them says a word on the way. Andrea is still holding Riccardo’s hand though, and it feels both odd and comforting at the same time. Riccardo leans his forehead against the window and hides his smile into the scarf he shouldn’t even be wearing on such a hot day.

“We’re here,” Andrea finally tells him as they drive past a few paparazzi lurking outside and through the automatic gates that slide closed after them. Andrea’s house is large and modern, with window panels covering whole walls and a well-kept garden surrounding the premises. It looks really damn corny to Riccardo, but he manages to hold his tongue.

“Taking up gardening in your old age, huh?” Fine, he almost manages to hold his tongue. But in his defence, the garden _is_ really damn corny and the mere thought of Andrea tending it even more so.

“I’ll have you know gardening is very therapeutic!” Andrea’s cheeky smile is infectious and Riccardo finds himself returning the smile without a second thought. He grabs his bag before Andrea has a chance to do it – he’s a grown man, there’s not a chance in hell he’s going to let Andrea pamper him just because he’s the guest here – and follows him to the front door.

“Finally!” Andrea growls when he closes the door behind them. “Come here, you.”

Riccardo finds it surprisingly easy to just let himself be pulled into the familiar embrace, Andrea’s arms fitting around his waist just like they used to, his beard soft against his cheek, his lips and tongue just as maddening as he recalls them, if not more so. It’s virtually impossible to remember what he’d been so scared of when he’s kissing Andrea like this, all the pieces fitting back together perfectly, like there had never been any distance at all.

“ _Oh fuck_! Get a room!” Of course Niccolò would choose that exact moment to barge through the front door, cursing in English and slamming the door closed in his friends’ faces before they – hopefully – have time to see anything too discriminating.

Andrea breaks the kiss reluctantly and levels his son with a look that Riccardo thinks might promise murder. He keeps his hands around Andrea’s neck just in case he tries to fulfil that promise.

“Aren’t you supposed to be having a sleepover somewhere _that’s not here_?”

“Forgot my toothbrush.” Niccolò is smirking now – Riccardo is fairly sure he should be scared, because apparently the Pirlo Smirk™ is very much hereditary – and he ignores the ringing doorbell at such ease that really should make his father proud. “Hi Ricky. Sorry about that. Had a nice flight?”

“Exhausting,” Riccardo answers with an awkward chuckle as he finally untangles himself from Andrea’s embrace. Andrea seems even more reluctant to let him step back than he is. “Why couldn’t you move to – I don’t know – San Marino or something? Would make the trips so much more enjoyable.”

“Well I’m glad you’re here now, at least he can stop whining for a while.” Niccolò nods towards his father, the smirk still in place. “Now shoo, or I’m gonna have real trouble selling my pals the story of dad dragging another girlfriend home.”

“Another girlfriend, how many are there exactly?” Riccardo asks Andrea as he is dragged up the stairs and into a large bedroom, the voices of Niccolò’s American friends filling the hallway behind them. He means it as a joke, but even as he says it, his earlier doubts start raising their ugly heads again.

“Do you really need to ask?” Andrea asks and pulls him into another kiss without waiting for an answer. “I can assure you, the only truth Niccolò just revealed there was that I’m a terrible whiner when you’re not around. Horrible habit, by the way, especially when I’m trying to keep my sexuality out of the papers.”

It turns out Andrea is absolutely phenomenal when it comes to easing Riccardo’s insecurities. Riccardo shouldn’t be that surprised at this revelation, if he’s being honest with himself, because this has actually been one of Andrea’s better features as long as Riccardo’s known him – long before they even became involved, Andrea always knew the right thing to say whenever Riccardo was feeling anxious.

“I’ve missed you,” Riccardo admits softly, smiling against Andrea’s lips before stealing another kiss. And another. And another…

Niccolò knocks on the closed door and shouts his goodbyes before the sound of half dozen teenagers – that might as well be a parade of elephants judging by the noise level – heads downstairs and out of the door again. Andrea takes this as his cue to push Riccardo down to the bed, climb on top of him and claim his lips in a much deeper kiss, his smart tongue mapping Riccardo’s mouth anew.

“God, I missed you,” Andrea growls between the kisses, his hands sliding up to caress Riccardo’s face, thumbs rubbing his cheeks and brushing his bottom lip before he threads his fingers through Riccardo’s hair, matted and tangled from the long flight. “I knew it was going to be tough, but _fuck_ , I never imagined it was gonna be like this.”

“Like what?” Riccardo needs to know. He needs to know he hasn’t been the only one stretched paper thin by the distance. He needs Andrea to say it, even if he can read the too familiar feelings from every kiss Andrea gives him.

“Like a part of me was missing.” Andrea combs his fingers through Riccardo’s hair, rubs his scalp with his fingertips. Riccardo lets out an appreciative moan against his lips. “And a goddamn vital part at that. Like, a liver, or some shit. Can’t live without a liver, can you?”

“Not with your alcohol consumption, you can’t,” Riccardo jokes with an impish smile and runs his hands up along Andrea’s back until he can caress the back of his neck. Did he actually think, for even a moment, that he could live without this brilliantly crazy man? “You’re my liver, too. Just so you know.”

Andrea snorts and kisses the tip of Riccardo’s nose.

Riccardo loses his sense of time after that, his mind reeling with how good it feels to just be able to touch Andrea again. He never truly realized what it meant to kiss someone senseless, not before now, as his every sense is filled with only Andrea, kiss after kiss, touch after touch…

It takes them ages to remove even the first piece of clothing – Riccardo’s scarf, as it turns out – but once they can finally feel bare skin on bare skin, it takes not long at all for them to tumble down from that ecstasy, months of pining pushing their fumbling strokes, too urgent, too fast, and far too real.

Riccardo is sobbing aloud when he comes all over Andrea’s hands, his face pressed in the juncture of Andrea’s neck and shoulder, the taste of Andrea’s sweat on his tongue and the smell of semen filling his nostrils. Afterwards, Andrea kisses his hair and cradles him in his arms, their bodies sticky and disgusting, and Riccardo couldn’t care less even if they never showered again.

He drifts off to sleep only moments later, the jet lag finally catching up with him.

 

 

Riccardo slips back to wakefulness and knows immediately it can’t have been more than a few hours since he fell asleep. The digital clock on Andrea’s nightstand reads 02:03 and Andrea is fast asleep next to him.

He tries to go back to sleep, but he feels dirty and clammy, the sheets sticking to his skin and Andrea’s body far too hot pressed up against his back. Andrea’s arm on his waist is like a barrier that stops him from moving in the fear of rousing him.

Riccardo has grown so used to sleeping on his own that the queen-size bed suddenly feels far too small for the two of them. He needs to get away. How on earth can Andrea sleep so peacefully?

His mind is back on overdrive, too, running replays of their actions from a few hours ago, but also of the past two years, of every Skype call and hurried meeting between flights. Just for a moment, it had felt like the wait had been worth it, but now he’s back at square one – torn between wanting Andrea as close as humanly possible and wanting to run away, because it’s all too much too suddenly.

Andrea shifts in his sleep, his breath cool against Riccardo’s sweaty neck. Riccardo freezes, staying still as a statue until he’s sure Andrea is not awake and he can breathe a little bit easier again. It was never like this before Andrea moved to the US. He used to be unable to sleep whenever Andrea was not next to him, for fuck’s sake!

He closes his eyes forcefully and tries to empty his mind, looking for that same mindset that helps him fall asleep before an important match.

Andrea’s clock is flashing numbers 03:24 when he finally gives up and squirms out of Andrea’s hold, his bare feet thankfully silent on the cold floor as he sneaks into the adjacent bathroom for a quick shower.

As the cool water runs down his skin, washing away the sweat and dried semen, he finally starts feeling more like himself again.

Andrea is still sleeping when Riccardo slips back into the bedroom wrapped up in a towel he found hanging on the bathroom wall. He considers going back to bed and trying to catch some more sleep, but the mere thought makes his skin crawl. He has spent more than enough time lying awake for the night, no matter how inviting the thought of crawling back in with Andrea might seem. Thought and act are two completely different things, after all.

His bag is still waiting on the floor by the front door when he tiptoes down the stairs. He gets a fresh pair of boxers and sweatpants and pulls them on hurriedly despite knowing there’s no one but Andrea in the house with him. He pulls out his phone and turns it on before heading to the direction of what he thinks is the living room but turns out to be the kitchen.

Caffeine in the middle of the night is probably the last thing he needs if he ever intends to get his sleeping rhythm in order, but Riccardo has really missed Andrea’s espresso machine – he even tried to convince Andrea to leave the damn thing to his apartment back when he was planning the move – and it’s not like he’s going to sleep before the morning in any case.

He finds the living room ten minutes later with a freshly brewed double espresso in one hand and his phone in another. He finds a comfortable spot on the plush sofa and curls up there. It takes him only two guesses to get Andrea’s Wi-Fi password right, and he idly wonders if it tells more about their relationship or Andrea’s shitty e-security measures.

He glances at the clock on the wall and wonders if it would be too early in Italy to call Pazzo. Maybe, if he could just talk to someone who understands him, then maybe he could stop fidgeting and just relax and enjoy being close to Andrea.

His finger hovers over Pazzo’s name, but in the end he closes his contacts and opens WhatsApp instead. He answers his mom’s message asking if he made it to New York safely with a simple thumbs-up and a heart. Then he opens his enormous message thread with Andrea and scrolls through the past couple of months, looking for some hint, something to explain why he’s feeling so out of place now that he should be all content and happy.

 _[Where do we go from here?]_ He types the question only to erase it immediately.

_[It’s killing me. Not being close to you. But also being close to you.]_

He stares at the words for a good five minutes, trying to make sense of them. It’s how he’s feeling, that much he knows, but that doesn’t mean he understands it. And if he doesn’t understand it, how could Andrea?

He erases the text and closes his eyes with a frustrated sigh.

He’s just about to fall asleep when his phone chimes for a new message and startles him awake, the phone almost slipping out of his hold before he can collect himself.

_[Don’t hide from me.]_

Riccardo actually laughs even through the tears that are stinging his eyes; _of course_ Andrea knows something’s bothering him, and of course he chooses the one form of communication that makes Riccardo feel like he’s back in Italy, a whole ocean separating them. A reminder that whatever this is, it could be so much worse.

Another chime. _[Don’t leave me behind.]_

There’s movement in the corner of Riccardo’s eye as Andrea walks into the living room. He doesn’t say a word, only sits down in an armchair facing Riccardo. His features look almost impossibly soft in the early morning light shining through the thin curtains. Andrea writes something else on his phone and Riccardo’s app chimes one more time.

_[We’re in this together. Can’t live without a liver.]_

Riccardo smiles at the last sentence, taking it for what it truly means. He selects a voice message and lifts the phone closer to his mouth, meeting Andrea’s gaze as he replies in barely more than a whisper: “I love you too.”

Andrea returns Riccardo’s smile as his phone buzzes and then the recording repeats what Riccardo just said one, two, three times. Hearing it makes it feel more real.

They don’t say anything else, they only sit in comfortable silence until the dim morning light turns into full sunshine through the wide living room windows. Riccardo’s espresso has long since gone cold on the coffee table.

Finally Andrea gets up and collects Riccardo’s cup on his way to the kitchen. He still doesn’t say a word, but Riccardo gets up and follows him nonetheless, suddenly acutely aware how much he needs Andrea to stay close to him, no matter how antsy that closeness might make him feel.

Andrea is brewing a fresh pot of espresso, looking criminally good bathing in the sunlight by the kitchen windows. Seeing him like this, so domestic and familiar, makes it so easy for Riccardo to just walk up to him and wrap his arms around his waist from behind.

“Better now?” Andrea asks quietly as he leans back into Riccardo’s hug.

Riccardo only hums noncommittally and tightens his hold, hiding his face into Andrea’s soft hair.

“I guess that’s enough for now.” Andrea brushes his fingers over Riccardo’s gently. “We have all the time in the world.”

For the moment, Riccardo truly does believe him.

 

 

 


End file.
